POLYS

[eyein12]

so ive been working for a while now and tried to adjust polys in max and my poly counter says i have a 49,535 poly model. I know that this is above the budget according to the wiki, but i was curious how many polys is the dash 9 or the Es44-dc? I can lash up 4 dash9 units in a row and it doesnt change 1 frame rate and my fps are seamless, yet 1 of my dash 8s by itself and my fps goes down 5-10 and forget adding more to the lineup. i erased all inside faces and re did the cables so that the circle diameter uses 10 segments at best to complete a circlular-pipe. I removed anything you dont usually see in external view, and i used polyoptimizer to reorganize the polys and max says 49K but I almost believe that no changes have been made to the poly structure I imported into max with which was originally 106K. any ideas ? would like to optimize this for the game without having to start from scratch in max.

[SCLALINE]

Did you do the LOD's correctly - that has alot to do with it as well, we had this with some models in MSTS which looked awesome but crippled the system

[eyein12]

not entirely sure about LODS. I basically have it set up like this:

1_2000_body
1_0100_frontdetail
1_0050_backdetail
1_0600_wiper1
1_0600_wiper2
1_0600_wiper3
1_0600_wiper4
1_0600_wiper5
1_0600_wiper6
1_0600_wiper7
1_0600_wiper8
1_0600_wiper9
1_0600_wiper10
1_0600_wiper11
1_1000_bo01
1_0600_bo01wh01 ( all three linked to bo01)
1_0600_bo01wh02
1_0600_bo01wh03
1_1000_bo02
1_0600_bo02wh01 (all three linked to bo02)
1_0600_bo02wh02
1_0600_bo02wh03
1_2000_cab
1_2000_light_fwdhead
1_2000_light_fwdtail
1_2000_light_revhead
1_2000_light_revtail

I think you may be on to something, because when i edited the polys to get to 49K the asset editor processed it alot faster. maybe it is an LOD thing i'm not getting right


and can some explain how the 5 levels of LOD actually work because the wiki doesnt explain them well. all i understand is that each has a poly limit attached. but when do i use 2,3,4,5 LODS?
like 2_xxxx_something for example.

[SMMDigital]

You have to remember that most of your smaller parts will not be seen from very far away, as the game tends to muddle things together after about 250m out. Also, remember that the LODS are in meters, not feet. You might be able to see a windshield wiper from 600 meters (about 1800 feet) with your own eyes, but you would never see them from that far away in the game.

I can't go into detail about the LOD levels right now, as the wife is rushing me out the door to the Longhorn. I'll 'splain it better later!

[eyein12]

i applied some smaller LODs to the clutter items on my engine, but when close to engine i get the same stutter that i dont get when i have a dash 9 there instead. the clutter items disappear as they should but it doesnt change the fps. I applied the same convention to them with 1_0055_clutter as the name for those items. all my LOD is still using 1 as the top but i almost feel this is wrong.

[SMMDigital]

I use this technique on the Visi-Sig signal heads, but it should work with any part. This is how the part will show up in 3DCrafter:

1_0010_Part1 Group Name
-2_0100_Part1 Group Name (This group is "nested" within the first group named 1_0010_Part1)
-2_0100_Part1 Part Name - Part will show up from 10.1 meters to 100 meters.
-3_0200_Part1 Group Name (This group is "nested" within the first group named 1_0010_Part1)
-3_0200_Part1 Part Name - Part will show up from 100.1 meters to 200 meters.
-4_0500_Part1 Group Name (This group is "nested" within the first group named 1_0010_Part1)
-4_0500_Part1 Part Name - Part will show up from 200.1 meters to 500 meters.
1_0010_Part1 Part Name - Part will show up to 10 meters.

Basically, in this example you have five different objects that will show and/or disappear at different distances that the viewer camera is located from the object. My two story modern homes also use this technique to negate Moire on siding and brick surfaces. You see the house in full detail up close and out to a certain distance, then the high-detail home disappears and is replaced by a lower detail home, then at a longer distance is replaced by a very low detail home. The appearances and disappearances are seamless and usually not noticed in the game unless you are looking right at the object.

Also, I was unaware that there was a five level limit. My VisiSig heads use 9 levels. But depending on the graphics card, an end user may not see all nine levels.

I noticed that you have some LODS set to 2000 meters - that's about a mile-and-a-quarter away. Is it really necessary, or can you even see, the locomotive from that far distant in the game? I don't know anything at all about building locomotives, but I do remember seeing a post where one of the guys at RSC, RSDerek I believe, made a comment that he thought 20,000 polys was a lot for a steam locomotive. I would assume from that statement that D9 probablly has somewhere around that level.

[Johnybotto]

That cleared some things up. Still a bit fuzz on the nesting and what you mean by that. I'm trying to figure the LODs out for my buildings. And to add a bit to the confusion I'm working in Blender. Thank you for posting the explanation SMM.

John

[SMMDigital]

I'll post a screen-cap later this evening that will clarify the relationship between the LODs and groupings.

[eyein12]

thanks jerry,

Then i have a bigger problem then. my model is 40K poly. And to add to that the game stutters when close up it not far away. It seems to stutter around the nose area. but i can't peg what item is causing the issue. I changed the shapes of the clutter items to use less polys yet still stutters. it actually gets better the further away you go from the loco.

I dont think my issue is poly related.

[g_nash]

so ive been working for a while now and tried to adjust polys in max and my poly counter says i have a 49,535 poly model. I know that this is above the budget according to the wiki, but i was curious how many polys is the dash 9 or the Es44-dc? .

I 'll assume that you are refering to the triangle count for you model ?

Dash 9 would be 40k +/- 2k , ES44 would be similar I'd guess . Budgets are an advisory figure , and to comment on the 20k mentioned for a steamer I'd suggest a look at the clays for the K4 to see many more quite a few than 20k tris

I can lash up 4 dash9 units in a row and it doesnt change 1 frame rate and my fps are seamless, yet 1 of my dash 8s by itself and my fps goes down 5-10 and forget adding more to the lineup. i erased all inside faces and re did the cables so that the circle diameter uses 10 segments at best to complete a circlular-pipe. .

Shaders setup properly , As in you have the backface cull flag correctly set ?
10 sided cyclinders for handrails etc is a tad excessive , 8 sided with SGs is more than enough for top level 3 sided for mid level and delete off the body for anything else.

I removed anything you dont usually see in external view, and i used polyoptimizer to reorganize the polys and max says 49K but I almost believe that no changes have been made to the poly structure I imported into max with which was originally 106K. any ideas ? would like to optimize this for the game without having to start from scratch in max.

And the less said about the Pro Optimiser the better , if you built properly from the start you should have no need to use it .

.

[SMMDigital]

Here is the pic of how one of the lights on a SafeTran signal is set up.

smm_nestedparts.JPG

[eyein12]

@g_nash: Shaders setup properly , As in you have the backface cull flag correctly set ?


can you elaborate on this concept for me? dont know anything about backface cull, so i don t know what to look for.

[Johnybotto]

A picture is worth a thousand words, thanks SMM; that put another piece of the puzzle together for me.
John

[eyein12]

should i be ticking the backface cull option?

which didnt do anything anyway. still stutters a bit.

[eyein12]

ok So ive been reworking the C40-8 model and amazingly paying better attention to modelling in sketchup actually pays off.... BIG! Before I had a model that was pushing 130K triangles, now just by being smarter about segments and curves, the model is sitting at 55K. I havent even finished with the trucks, Cab, and the exhaust stack either which should take this model down way further. so far nothing about the appearance has changed! I think this will make a huge difference. I think i can get it closer to 30K without even needing the proOptimizer in max.